Hurd: HP probe included my cell / CEO tells Congress he has few details about investigation

Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Thursday, November 2, 2006

Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd said Wednesday that the team that investigated boardroom leaks at the Silicon Valley giant had accessed his own cell phone records.

Hurd made the revelation in a letter to Congress, responding to follow-up questions from the congressional subcommittee that held hearings in September regarding HP's use of false identities to obtain personal information during the internal probe at the Palo Alto company.

Hurd's letter was addressed to Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the oversight panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which grilled him and other former and current HP executives on the scandal that turned the spotlight on the way big companies conducted internal investigations.

Hurd said he wasn't exactly sure when he became aware that the HP team had probed his own phone records.

"I believe it was after Tom Perkins resigned and subsequently contacted the company about the letter he received from AT&T suggesting that someone had accessed his phone records through the use of an e-mail account," he wrote.

Perkins, a former HP director, angrily left the company's board in May, reportedly in protest over the company's handling of the probe that eventually found that another director, George Keyworth, a Perkins ally, was the culprit in the boardroom leaks.

Asked if he inquired how his phone records were accessed, Hurd responded, "I don't remember asking how phone records for my own HP-owned phone were obtained."

Hurd has said repeatedly that he did not know or does not remember the details of the botched probe that plunged the company into the most embarrassing scandal in its history.

He cited ignorance and a poor memory again in most of his responses to Whitfield, whose Oct. 17 letter focused on a July 22, 2005, meeting in which the HP operation was discussed.

Whitfield also asked Hurd about an Aug. 25, 2006, interview in which he told attorneys from the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati law firm that someone told him the HP probe involved obtaining phone records "off of the Web."

Asked how long he attended the July 2005 meeting and who else was present, Hurd said he did not know "how long exactly I attended," but said he remembered Patricia Dunn and others were present.

Dunn is the former HP chairwoman who now faces criminal charges for her role in the disastrous probe.

Forced to resign both as chairwoman and director in September, she has been portrayed by some analysts as HP's scapegoat in the scandal.

Asked to explain his statement about getting phone records from the Web, Hurd said, "I cannot provide any further information for the remark. ... I recall only the remark being made by someone at some time and thinking that there must be some Web site with the information."

Hurd said that, "At some point, I did come to understand that telephone call information was being used as part of the leak investigation. However, I do not recall when I became aware of that information or who made me aware of it."

He also said, "In retrospect, I wish that I had been more focused on investigatory methodologies when the remark was made. Had I been, I might have questioned the remark or pressed for more details on the investigation."

Hurd had earlier also admitted that he did not read a report that tackled details of the company probe.

William Keane, a San Francisco criminal defense attorney with Farella Braun & Martel, said it is not surprising that a CEO in charge of a major corporation would not remember every detail of a meeting that happened a year ago.

"Given that the meeting was a year go, a CEO with many things on his plate that he is in and out of, I don't think it's surprising to hear him say that he doesn't recall a lot of the details of the meeting," he said. "But ultimately, as to that meeting, the question will be whether what he heard failed to raise any red flags for him."

That probably will not be clear until more details of the HP probe come to light, most likely during the trial of Dunn and four co-defendants who face fraud, identity theft and conspiracy charges.

Dunn is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 17.

HP said the subcommittee had sent two letters to Hurd "seeking information about the Kona investigation and the steps HP is taking in the aftermath of that investigation."

Kona was the code name for the HP probe.

HP spokesman Ryan Donovan said the company will respond to the second set of questions "when its review of the Kona investigation is complete."